1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cartridge detachably mountable to a main body of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, an electrophotographic image forming apparatus to which the cartridge is detachably mountable, and a cartridge holding member, which moves the cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the present day, an electrophotographic image forming apparatus such as a color laser printer is widely used. As the image forming apparatus, the electrophotographic image forming apparatus of the rotary developing type is known. A plurality of developing cartridges are mounted to a rotatable rotary Then, the rotary is rotated to oppose the developing cartridges of the respective colors to an electrophotographic photosensitive drum to form a color image.
In the image forming apparatus, a configuration for facilitating a mounting/detaching operation of the developing cartridge to/from a developing cartridge mounting portion provided in a main body of the image forming apparatus is required when the developing cartridge is to be replaced by a new one. In the image forming apparatus of the rotary developing type, in particular, it is required to lock the developing cartridge to the main body of the image forming apparatus to prevent the developing cartridge from falling out of the rotating rotary when the rotary to which the developing cartridge is mounted is rotated and to release the lock when the developing cartridge is to be detached from the rotary.
In order to satisfy the above-mentioned requirement, there exists the following configuration. A handle part is provided in the middle of the cartridge in a longitudinal direction. Then, the handle part is gripped to make the cartridge mountable/detachable to/from the apparatus main body. By the operation of the handle part, the developing cartridge is locked to the apparatus main body and the lock is released (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-202793).
With the recent reduction of the size of the apparatus main body along with that of the developing cartridge, however, it becomes more and more difficult to ensure a sufficient space required for the operation In view of such a situation, a configuration which provides good operability in mounting and detaching even when the developing cartridge is reduced in size is expected.